


Adrift

by Resa_Saso



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Fluff and Humor, It's really hard to explain, M/M, Pretty domestic too, with a creepy undertone, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-10 19:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15955769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resa_Saso/pseuds/Resa_Saso
Summary: The Doctor is alone in his TARDIS until he spots a burglar and decides to set up a lot of traps. No wait. Actually the Master ran into that one by himself and wasn't that a whole other movie anyway? ANYWAY, the Master comes to comfort him, what, now that the Doctor thinks about it, sounds a little bit off. What is going on exactly? || This, this is the reason I don't let Ten write summaries anymore.





	1. Of beginnings - and fire-spitting Shugos

He wasn’t alone in his TARDIS.

Which, usually, was a good sign. Really, he loved not being alone in his TARDIS. Being alone in his TARDIS sucked, not only because that meant he was alone, but also because that meant no one else was there. Which, now that he thought about it, was the same thing.

But right now, in this very moment, the Doctor had been alone in his TARDIS.

Well. Let’s just say, that’s what he had _thought_. Turned out, he had thought extremely wrong – which didn’t happen all that often. Well. Quite often. Let’s say 50% of the time- but he usually found out where he went wrong at the end of being wrong.

Actually, that was quite a good idea.

Time to find out where he had been wrong.

With a grin on his face, he started his journey through the TARDIS. Several corridors led in various directions and got darker the more steps he took. With a frown, he lifted his head, giving the ceiling a dark glare and hoping his TARDIS would get the message.

“It’s a bit dark,” he uttered pointedly after admitting to himself that no, she really didn’t get the message.

“It keeps on getting darker!” he noted while he followed nothing but his hearing, his hands gliding along the walls while walking.

There was the sound again; like something was falling and shattering on the ground. Sulkily he realized the sound came from his art gallery.

“It’s still very dark,” he added, this time a bit quieter, sneaking up on the door he knew was somewhere to his right. It seemed like his TARDIS really wasn’t in the mood to support him today.

With held breath, he pushed open the door slowly and carefully, peeking through the crack to see what was going on.

“Oh, great!” he called out loud before he could stop himself. “Glad you give the burglar lights, that seems absolutely fair!”

Annoyed, he opened the door the rest of the way, his screwdriver pointed at whoever was behind it.

If he was being honest, the Master looked utterly unimpressed. Which was a shame, but kind of to be expected. He wasn’t the one whose screwdriver had a laser setting. But, on the pro side, he also wasn’t the one who was supposed to be dead.

“What're you gonna do?” the Master asked with an eyebrow raised sceptically. “Tighten my loose screws?”

The Doctor decided to not dignify this remark with an answer, mostly because he had no dignified answer.

“What are you doing here, alive- and smashing things in my art gallery?” he asked back instead.

The Master snorted. “Art gallery? One painting and a few _really_ ugly porcelain pots. Even you couldn’t be pretentious enough to call this an art gallery, surely?”

“Yeah, I can!” the Doctor shouted indignantly. “No. Hang on.”

Frowning, he let his arm with the screwdriver slowly drop.

He’s real, he realised. He’s really here. And he even grew a beard.

He looked at the Master with widened eyes, mouth slightly ajar. There he stood, like a ghost from his past; all dressed in black, hair faintly grey on the edges, but the same sharp eyes, the same malicious smirk on the face that resembled a koala so much.

He had made it a rule to never believe the Master’s deaths. They usually found a way out of it, escaped when there was absolutely no hope for an escape, with a laugh and a wave. But this time, the Doctor had truly thought this was it, that he was the last of his kind, once again, beaten in a game he had never wanted to play.

Yet, here he was, and the Doctor didn’t even manage to feel worried. For a few glorious seconds, all there was, was joy and excitements and the undeniable urge to hug him.

Then he realised he stood with absolutely no means of defence in front of his arch enemy, who had not only somehow managed to raise from the dead, but also broken into his TARDIS.

A nervous smile graced the Doctor’s face. “Please don’t turn her into a paradox machine again?” he tried lamely. “She was grumpy for weeks.”

The Master looked at him thoughtfully for a while. “You’re alone, Doctor?”

He shrugged. “Martha left to become a doctor. Jack has a team to lead. Haven’t found anyone else yet.”

The Master frowned. “What, no one?”

“Well, Donna was with me for a while, but you know…” his voice faded slowly.

You know _what_? Where _was_ Donna?

He lost the thought when the Master offered him his arm, and led him gently through the TARDIS corridors. They suddenly seemed to have their lighting back. Confused, the Doctor let himself be led, looking into an almost affectionate face – which was the most worrying thing of all, really.

“Fret not!” the Master winked. “For your Master’s here now.”

And somewhere deep, deep inside, the Doctor realised he should be worried, this was worrying, right, he had just thought how worrying it all was - but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

 

 

“It’s ugly.”

“No, it’s not,” the Doctor replied, properly infuriated. “It really, really isn’t. Have you even looked? You’re not looking!”

The Master shrugged. “Why would I? It’s ugly. Been here before.”

With open mouth, the Doctor turned back to the glowing water, looking as if it was in flames, burning red and reflecting the sinking sun. Back to the Master, who, unimpressed, watched his own nails. Back to the water, where the Shugo’s were dancing without leaving any trace, like fireflies whirling through the air right above the glowing surface.

Back to the Master, who didn’t even try to stifle his yawn. In fact, the Doctor thought incredulously, he would even go so far as to assume that the Master had yawned _intentionally_.

“It’s breath-taking,” he tried lamely, sounding so insecure, he couldn’t even convince himself.

But it _was_ breath-taking.

Absolutely so.

“I thought you’d might like it,” the Doctor sulked. “Glaring red makes you look a bit like you’re soaked in the blood of your enemies and all. No?”

The Master lifted his glance from his nails to the Doctor with an amused sneer.

 “How very thoughtful,” he yawned – _yawned_! – again. “Are you offering yours, by any chance?”

“What?” the Doctor sputtered. “No! Why are you even here if all you do is tease me?” he added with a quiet little voice that made the Master roll his eyes and move from the stone he’d been leaning on casually.

“Well, to tease you, for instance. You can hardly expect me to do anything else. It’s a miracle I haven’t tried to kill you yet, let’s be real for a second.”

“It is,” the Doctor agreed. “And I’m still not trusting you.”

“I can tell,” he smirked. “You haven’t taken your eyes off me for the whole show.”

_Oh, that wasn’t because I mistrust you_ , he wanted to say, but held back in the very last moment.

“Rubbish,” he replied instead. “And how could you even tell? You’ve been staring at your hands the whole night!”

“Because I know you,” the Master grinned back at him. “And what else was I supposed to do? Look at you? _You’ve got something on your back._ ”

“What?” the Doctor asked, turning his head around quickly.

With a surprised cry, he jumped backwards, trying to get rid of the Shugo that had clamped its little legs into his coat. The Master watched him with a loud laugh, while he jumped up and down, trying to shake his body in the most ridiculous moves to get rid of the little alien elf.

“Oh, look at the dancing Time Lord!” the Master called down to the audience of the little spectacle, still shaking from laughter. “He’s practising to be in your show next year!”

“Stop laughing and get it off me!” the Doctor cried while running down the little hill towards the TARDIS. “Why don’t I have my screwdriver, get it off me already!”

“I’m wondering, did you know that a Shugo’s sting doesn’t only cause burning pain, but also a really nasty rash for at least a week, with boils and all?”

“Yes!” the Doctor squeaked while throwing his TARDIS key to the ground in panic. “Yes, I did, now help me! Oh, why won’t you open up, you know it’s me!”

Hands in his pockets and a wide grin plastered on his face, the Master came after him, pushing the TARDIS doors open gently.

“You know what, I think you were right. It’s lovely here after all.”


	2. Of cereals

Living together in the TARDIS worked great.

“I know what you’re going to say, and I’m asking you not to.”

“Oh come on!” the Doctor replied with a broad grin. “You can’t deny it’s cute! It is cute, isn’t it? Come on, say it’s cute!”

“Nothing that can give me a rash is cute. Nothing.”

“Look at the little wings, fluttering and spreading like that!”

The Master shot him an utterly incredulous glare. “It looks like it’s ready to jump into your face to finish what it started!”

“I think I’ll call him Ko…”

“Oh, it’s a ‘he’ now?”

The Doctor winked at him. “I had him stuck on my back, I know things about him you can’t even imagine.”

The Master rolled his eyes. “Well, you can't.”

“I can't what?” the Doctor replied with the most innocent tone he could produce- which didn’t sound innocent at all.

“Call it that.”

“You haven’t even heard my suggestion.”

The Master snorted. “I don’t need to. I know exactly what you were going to say and I’m saying you are not calling him that.”

The Doctor pointed at him with a bright grin. “Hah!” he called. “You said ‘him’! You called Koschei ‘him’!”

“Rassilon,” the Master gave back, exasperated, while walking into the kitchen with his back to the Doctor. “You have no idea how much I hate you.”

The Doctor didn’t pay him any attention, turning back to the little Shugo right in front of him, currently crashing against the cage walls, trying to escape and with a vengeful expression on the little, spiked face.

“You don’t hate me, do you Koschei? Nooooo, you don’t hate me at all! You’re a cutie, Koschei! Such a cutie!”

Somewhere in another room, the Doctor could hear someone groaning in desperate fury.

 

Sometime around afternoon- which was a very relative term, considering they just came from a night show; but it was afternoon on his inner clock, which was what counted after all…. It was afternoon, wasn’t it? He frowned and threw a glance to the Master, who lay on the couch spread out like a sunbathing cat, reading.

“How late do you think it is?” he asked.

The Master didn’t even look up, but it didn’t stop him from rolling his eyes. The Doctor was fairly certain _nothing_ could stop the Master from rolling his eyes, not even death herself. In fact, she probably was the one who taught him that.

“Afternoon,” The Master grumbled towards his book and turned the page lazily.

Hah! So.

Sometime around afternoon, the Doctor began to realize that the Master wasn’t going to leave. Which, now that he considered it, would’ve been the better question to ask. He looked up again, considering whether he really wanted to risk disturbing the Master again in his surely very interesting read of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’. With an exasperated sigh, the Master laid down his book before he could even speak a word.

“What?”

The Doctor grinned.

“Been wondering. Are you gonna stay?”

He was trying to sound as casual as possible, which probably meant he sounded not casual at all – oh yes, he was aware of that – and he was quite relieved when he saw a little smile appear on the Master’s face.

“Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, well, I suppose your plan is still in phase one. Just give me a rough schedule for when I am expected to either be killed or stop you, so I know how much bread to get in the supermarket next time.”

“Honestly,” the Master replied, with a roll of his eyes. The Doctor briefly wondered whether this much eye-rolling prevented cramps. He should really try it sometime. “I’m more of a cereal person.”

He returned to his book and the Doctor returned to watching him, a thoughtful expression on his face.

He figured this was confirmation that the Master would stay for a while, and he took it gladly. He also figured the other Time Lord had reasons he couldn’t think of right now, because the last time they had seen each other, they hadn’t exactly been on good terms, to say the least.

So what happened between “I’d literally rather die than staying with you” and “I’m a cereal person?”

Also, on a more dubious note – What had happened that had turned the Master into a cereal person because he recalled a _lot_ of breakfasts and none of them had involved any sort of cereals.

Well, he supposed he couldn’t expect to have _all_ mysteries solved.

“They’re dry and unyielding,” The Master commented, eyes still focused on his book. “Just like me.”

“Are you reading my thoughts or something?” The reply was meant playfully but before he had even finished speaking, the Doctor was already checking up on his own mental barriers. It wasn’t that he didn't want the Master in his head, just… well, there were less dangerous situations. Dancing in the slowly closing jaws of a shark, hugging a Shugo, floating around a Black Hole – he had actually gotten out of that one alive, but he wasn’t sure if he could say the same with the Master in his head. Nope. Best not test it.

“Don’t need to,” the Master gave back, still showing how utterly unimpressed he was by his very presence by continuing to stare into his book.

“You know, when you give milk to cereal, it gets soft and soggy.”

The Master looked up, smirking cruelly.

“Just like you.”

The Doctor considered being insulted for a few seconds, but then he simply shrugged, waiting for the other Time Lord to realize he had just played himself. It took the Master three pages until he looked up with a frown.

“No,” he said, when he saw the Doctor’s grin. “That was _not_ what I meant when I said I’m a cereal person.”

 

The Master insisted on taking the bedroom that was the furthest away from the Doctor’s, which was both a little bit petty and utterly ridiculous. He had been the one that had come here out of his own free will and seemingly decided to stay.

The Doctor went to bed with a whirling headache and the nagging feeling that some things didn’t add up about the whole situation. He wasn’t sure what was going with the Master, if it was really an evil plan or something else, but he would have to be careful until he had figured it out.

Never let my guard down, he thought with a yawn. Best to sleep with one eye open, really.

He was deeply asleep the second his head touched the pillow.

Which was alright, because with the Master in his dreams, he couldn’t really cause any trouble in the real world, could he? Somewhere in his subconscious, the Doctor might have realized what a flawed theory this was, but in this moment, he just watched the Master with a slight little smile.

“You’re everywhere, do you know that?”

The Master frowned. Fair enough, the Doctor thought. If he was a ghost-like frame surrounded by darkness, he’d be frowning, too. It must be a very confusing state to suddenly be in.

“And you?” he asked. “Where are you? How long are you going to stay here, Doctor?”

“No no no, I asked _you_ that question- this is my TARDIS, you’re the guest.”

The Master raised one eyebrow and suddenly the Doctor felt very, very cold. Where was the light, why was it so dark?

“Is it?”

He woke up gasping.

 

The next morning, the Doctor was very short on words. The Master found him underneath the console, desperately rearranging several switches and pipes without any system whatsoever. His eyes fell on a half-emptied cup, which he held to his nose and then as far away from him as possible, a disgusted look on his face.

Instant coffee.

“You’re actually drinking that stuff?” he asked, looking down at his tea with new affection.

“There was no tea,” came the short reply from somewhere underneath the console.

The Master looked at his own cup with a frown, then shrugged and took another sip.

“Shame,” he said. “And what exactly are you doing down there?”

“Trying to fix the lights. It’s too dark in here. I can’t even properly see my own steps.”

He climbed up from underneath an utterly helpless mess of pipes, a bit of smudge on his nose and a worried look on his face.

“Something’s wrong with her.”

The Master couldn’t stop looking at his nose. “So?”

“Yeah,” the Doctor insisted, ignoring the hypnotic stare right in front of him. “It’s like she doesn’t recognize my imprimatur anymore.” His gaze darkened. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with that, now, would you?”

The Master shrugged. “Nah. I’d have you kicked out long ago if I’d actually managed to make this my TARDIS. Must be something else.”

The Doctor sighed, looking down on the mess he had carefully cultivated over the centuries.

“I wish I could at least see something while working,” he muttered and sank back down.

The Master looked at him for a while, completely lost in thought, then sat down on the sofa, continuing his breakfast – the Doctor had gotten him cereal – and his book.

 

 


	3. Of two Koscheis and two shadows

“You don’t want me to leave poor Ko…. that poor thing alone in here, do you?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes – he had tested it, it didn’t help against cramps, but it was still a very satisfying gesture to do sometimes.

“You really can’t bring yourself to say it, can you?”

The Master’s face showed a short wince, before he managed to hide it behind his usual mask of indifference.

“I don’t like the name. I didn’t like it on me, that’s why I changed it- and I sure don’t like it on a fire spitting Shugo.”

They had discovered that ability when trying to feed it. The Master had looked utterly smitten with the little alien for the first time, which had led the Doctor to consider bringing it back to its planet after all. As lovely as it would be to have a little pet burning, rash causing, fire spitting alien elf constantly try and break the cage it was in, maybe he should set him free.

It wasn’t really his style to keep prisoners, after all.

“You’re right,” he said. “Maybe we should take him back home first.”

The Master frowned at him. “That was precisely not what I meant.”

“No, I know what you meant,” the Doctor gave back with a little smirk. “ ‘Oh Doctor, I don’t want to help people, can I not stay in here with a fire spitting alien and cause havoc while you check up on that SOS call?’ Well. The answer’s no.”

“First of all,” the Master remarked, looking utterly unimpressed. “I don’t say ‘Oh Doctor’.”

The Doctor snorted. “You used to practically ‘Oh my dear Doctor’ me every single sentence.”

“Second,” the Master continued with a slightly raised voice, pretending to not have heard him – typical. “I don’t see when I have started taking orders from you. Or am I your prisoner now?”

“Of course not!” he answered, so quickly that it made the Master raise an eyebrow. “It’s just… my TARDIS… and I can… ask you not to stay alone in my TARDIS, right?”

The other Time Lord continued to look utterly unimpressed. To be quite honest, the Doctor wasn’t sure when he had seen this face impressed the last time. Did the Master even _do_ impressed this time around?

“Plus,” the Doctor added quickly, trying to come up with a better rationalisation as he went along; that was usually how he made conversation, really. “You said you don’t want me to be alone, so that does include my trips, doesn’t it?”

The Master didn’t seem to be sure what to retort, and the Doctor decided to put that rare silence to use.

“Now, we’re gonna take Koschei home first and then we’re going to see who asked us for help!” He ignored the Master’s flinch. Bringing it up would only endanger his life, anyway. “Planet of the Shugos, here we come!"

With the usual growing enthusiasm, he always felt while commanding his ship, he ran around the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers with a wide grin on his face.

The Master watched him for a few seconds wordlessly, then quietly pointed out, “It’s called Azrail. I know, because it says “Azrail” on this monitor here. Because we are on Azrail. Because we never left into the vortex. Because you were very busy, getting a fire spitting Shugo off your back.”

Well. All of these were pretty good points.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine, let’s open the door and let this one out, then.”

With a roll of his eyes and a word muttered into his beard which sounded suspiciously like “finally”, the Master pushed open the TARDIS door. The Doctor took the cage and positioned it outside, then carefully opened the door to freedom.

“Goodbye little Koschei,” he grinned. “Just as vicious as your namesake.”

As an answer, the little creature jumped out of the cage and fluttered around the Doctor in one quick move, clinging to his back.

“Oh… oh no…” the Doctor called out, turning around quickly, trying to get rid of it. “No, no, no, Koschei, no, don’t do that, please!”

The Master burst into laughter.

“Get it off me, get it off me, pleeease!”

“Oh, Doctor!” the Master replied with a slight smirk. “Surely you wouldn’t call poor Koschei something as impersonal as ‘it’, you bloody hypocrite?”

The Doctor stopped running around in panic for a second and stared him in the eyes intently. “If you’ll forget what just happened, I’ll forget you just said, ‘Oh Doctor’ despite your very vigorous claims that you wouldn’t.”

He didn’t even take time to consider, just silently grabbed the Shugo and got it off the Doctor’s back with one quick pull, throwing it back into the cage before it could sting.

The both Time Lords watched it for a few seconds, the Doctor still gasping, a little out of breath. It didn’t move, just curled up on the spot and purred happily. A bit of steam was leaking out of its nose.

They crooked their heads.

“I think… he doesn’t want to leave?” the Doctor finally concluded lamely.

The Master stared at the still open cage, then shrugged. “I suppose. He did cling to you, after all.”

“So… I’ll just… keep him?”

Again, the Master just shrugged. “If he doesn’t want to leave…”

With a shake of his head, the Doctor collected the cage and shut the door again, muttering something under his breath that the Master would’ve recognized as “Great, two pet Koschei's who don’t want to leave,” had he not decided he was suddenly very deaf to the frequency of the Doctor’s voice.

 

 

They both had absolutely no idea where the SOS call took them. A look on the screen told them they’d hooked on to a space station somewhere deep in space.

With a tiny little spark of excitement, the Doctor stepped on the dusty, metal grating the TARDIS had parked on and looked around with wiggling eyebrows.

“Looks good, doesn’t it?”

The Master, who was coming out after him, snorted. “Looks boring, if you ask me.”

But the Doctor didn’t even listen, he was too caught up in the magic of it. The unknown, the adventure, the voices he heard from above them, strangers who would soon become people he fought for and with. The rush of it all. He hadn’t done this sort of thing in far too long, and he hadn’t even noticed how much he missed it until now.

And the Master being here to help was just a huge plus.

He flashed a grin towards the other Time Lord and they started to make their way through the dark tunnels of the space station until they found a ladder.

“You just want to climb up here?” the Master asked with a sigh, while the Doctor had already taken the first few steps. “You don’t even know what’s up there!”

“That’s the whole fun of it,” the Doctor replied with a little wink and continued climbing undisturbed.

“I wish I hadn't expected this answer,” the Master said with a low grumble while following the other Time Lord.

They entered a crowded control room and before the Doctor could even say something like “Hello, I’m the Doctor, I come in peace and this is the Master, he never comes in peace, but if you don’t provoke him, he’ll behave until he sees an advantage for himself!” there was the familiar and definite sound of several gun's safeties being released.

The Doctor swallowed down the words and instead just sighed.

“What’s going on?” the Master asked from beneath him, still hanging on the ladder waiting for the Doctor to move.

“Guns!” he called down. “A lot of humans with a lot of guns. It’s always the same, humans and their toys.”

A woman close to him came closer, holding the barrel of her gun right to his forehead.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?”

The Doctor grinned up to her. “So glad you asked. I’m the Doctor. Oh and this is the… Uhm.”

“The Master,” a grumpy voice came from beneath his feet. “What, you’re suffering from amnesia again?”

“No, it’s just… not exactly a subtle name, you know?”

“I’m not exactly a subtle person.”

The Doctor shrugged and finally swung himself out of the hatch into the control room, still grinning unconcernedly towards all the guns held in his face.

“He’s not wrong with that. Anyway. That’s the Master. Awful name, I know. He chose it himself.”

Some of the humans exchanged confused glances. The Doctor decided to use their speechlessness for as long as it lasted.

“Anyway. We’re here to help. We picked up your SOS call.”

The Master’s face appeared in the hatch as he gracefully climbed into the room and positioned himself next to the Doctor, throwing an unimpressed glare to the gun holder closest to him.

The Doctor looked around all of their faces, still grinning like a maniac. “So? What… what exactly is the problem?”

The crew around them shared another glance. Nobody seemed sure what to do. Looking closer, the Doctor could see that they seemed terrified. The hands in which they held the guns shook and trembled. The only one who seemed determined and cold was the woman closest to them, who had her lips pinched together and was staring at them undisturbed.

“The problem is, that some of our people were found dead. No explanation. No cause of death. And now you two show up here, claiming to have received a SOS call we have never sent.”

“Oh, you haven’t?” the Doctor called with a wide grin. “Brilliant!”

The Master coughed quietly.

“Oh. Oh. I meant. Strange. Very strange. We should definitely look into this.”

For a second, no one moved and now guns were lowered. Everyone looked at the woman in the middle of the crew, waiting for her decision.

After a little while of silence, the Master rolled his eyes. “Please. You said yourself you have found no causes of death. You really think we could do that? Whatever happened to them was alien. Not us. We’re human, just like you.”

The Doctor suppressed a surprised laugh. Never had he thought he’d see the day of the Master voluntarily claiming to be any lesser than he was. Sharp, dark eyes flashed towards him and the Doctor quickly tried his best to smother his grin – quite unsuccessfully, too.

But that quick little lie seemed enough to at least temporary earn them some trust. With the woman’s signal, everyone dropped their gun.

She waved them through, leading them through a system of narrow tunnels, accompanied by a tough looking, scarred man, and a young woman, who started introducing them.

“I’m Jill, this is Rick. He doesn’t talk much, but he’s our best man. And that beauty up there is Liza, she’s a bit grumpy right now, but don’t take it personal, she just doesn’t like to share,” she explained with a wink.

That actually got a smile from Liza, who turned around for a quick “Shut up, Jill!”.

“What about you two?” Jill wanted to know with a relaxed grin.

“Oh,” the Doctor replied joyfully. “He’s the grumpy one, definitely.”

The Master threw him a glance that signalised pure hatred.

“I’m also going to be the one who’s going to kill every single person on this ship who refers to us as a couple. And believe me, no matter what this idiot will save you from, I’m worse.”

The Doctor frowned. “Oh no, they weren’t implying we’re… wait. Were you?”

Jill remained unimpressed. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Well, we’re not,” the Master threw in a little too loud.

Liza turned around with a grin plastered on her usually so serious face. “Sure.”

The little, playful moment turned into something horrible before the Doctor could even blink. One second, there had been a smile on Liza’s face, the next it had vanished to a cruel, empty grimace. Taken by surprise, the Doctor suddenly stared into blank holes where warm, determined eyes had been. Within a moment, skin and warmth had disappeared from the face and left nothing but a skeleton. Before Jill could even scream, the body had sunk to the ground with the rattling sound of bones meeting bones.

The Master reacted before the Doctor even had time to process what had happened. He turned around to Jill and Rick, who were still staring in shock at their now dead friend. He checked the ground around them, then grabbed the Doctor by the hand and dragged him behind him in a quick sprint.

“Vashta Nerada!” he called while running. “You and your great ideas! Come _on_!”

But the Doctor tried to free himself from the Master’s firm grip, calling out for Jill and Rick repeatedly.

“Wait!” he shouted towards the Master. “Wait, wait, we got to help them!”

“We can’t help them!” the Master snapped back. “They’re dead! They already have two shadows! Now RUN, will you?”

“But the others… -“

“WHAT?” the Master was now screaming in rage, still dragging him back towards the TARDIS. “What are you gonna do? There’s nothing you can do to stop them, we got to get out of here before we’re next!”

“That’s not what I do!” the Doctor shouted back, but before he could even elaborate, the Master had ripped open the TARDIS door and pushed him inside.

“No!” the Doctor shouted, throwing himself against the door with all his might.

It wouldn’t budge.

“What have you done to her?” he screamed, slowly feeling a surge of panic rising in his chest. “Why won’t she listen to me anymore! _Open the door_!”

But the Master just watched him with crossed arms, shaking his head slowly- and far more calmly now that they were out of danger.

“I did nothing. I guess she doesn’t like your suicidal tendencies any more than I do.”

“We need to help them!” the Doctor called back, still helplessly banging his fists against the door. He could hear screams from the other side.

The Master let him scream and rampage for as long as he needed. When the Doctor finally gave up, his eyes were wet from tears. He sank down with his back to the door, burying his head in his arms.

“How could you do that. How could I do that? How could I ever think it’d be a good idea to go and try to help people with you around? Just how. How. Why.”

He sobbed.

“I just saved your life,” the Master replied tonelessly, his hands clenched into fists.

“At what price?”

When it was clear that the Doctor wasn’t going to get an answer, he stood up, walked to the console and got ready to change the coordinates, but he stopped mid-motion.

“Best you do it,” he muttered. “She’s not listening to me anyways.”

Defeated and resigned, he dragged himself towards his bedroom, shutting the door behind him with a resounding click.

The Master got left behind in the control room, looking after him with growing despair on his face, then set the ship back to Earth, sure that humans could comfort his old friend in all the ways he failed at.


End file.
